Thank You Furlough
Furlough was a word nobody had heard of before March 2020. In May of that year, I was placed on furlough, like thousands of others in the UK. At first, I was told that it would probably be for the minimum 3-week period then I would be back. It was 3 months later before I would be back and on flexi furlough at that.
I tried to enjoy the time off. My children were off school, the weather was good, but we were in lockdown so limited to what we can do. I knew routine would be the best thing, I didn’t want to be sleeping late then up half the night! As the days and weeks progressed, I became more anxious. I still had staff working and other managers looking after some of my work. I became fearful. Would I have a job to go back to? Would they realise that they didn’t need me? Would I be made redundant? All of those thoughts left a massive knot in my stomach.
Now I realise that at that point my identity was wrapped up in my job title, who I was at work and my ego.
I became quick to react to anything, was constantly scrolling through social media and would tear up at the drop of a hat. After a conversation with my husband, I realised I was getting worse and knew I needed to do something. I took time to sit and work through my “worst case scenario” – redundancy. At first I couldn’t see anything worse than that, couldn’t see life after that but as I thought more and asked myself questions I realised that I would survive, I had other skills and abilities, I would get work doing something. I then started to try and enjoy the time I had. I started taking fitness classes online and tried all different kinds of exercise to see what I liked – dance fitness, Box Fit and strength training by the way!
I wanted to put the time to good use and knew that for a while I had been thinking about training to become a life coach so I enrolled on a course and became a certified Transformational Life Coach in January 2021. I started to see that life could go on. I am grateful to have found personal development and by reading books and listening to podcasts as well as talking to friends and family about how I felt, I was able to turn the corner. I am now off furlough but on reflection I am grateful for the experience to allow me to look at myself, acknowledge my deepest fears and know that I had been through hard things before and survived, I can survive this!
